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7 December 2014

Blogmas Day 7: Christmas Day at Uni

About a month ago, our flat decided that due to us all being away from each other over the Christmas period, we would celebrate ourselves over a weekend just before we go away. So this weekend, we all donated some money to a kitty and bought food for a four course Christmas dinner, each of us being responsible for our own part. Secret Santa was decided about three weeks ago, and so this morning, after a 'Christmas Eve' of melted camembert, Vicar of Dibley and a carol concert at the university chapel, we gathered in the kitchen, presents in hand, ready to begin our christmassy day.

First off, was obviously the most important part of opening presents. After putting up some festive decorations and putting wrapping paper across the table to avoid any mess, we started on the Secret Santa revelations. We'd each picked names out of a hat, but as we all live together and there's only 8 of us, we did the classic thing of finding out who's everyones was and of course going slightly over budget. None the less, the presents were a huge success and everyone walked away happy. Especially Roman, who received a leather hat and Lizzie, who got a t-shirt with Sophie's face on it.

After the present opening ceremony, it was time to start cooking the food. As I am a notorious and self-confessed awful cook, I took on the role of dessert human, and so the four of my lovely flatmates, who had preordered the food, stepped up to the counter and began their cooking ways. Pigs in blankets, chicken crowns (because we're students and Turkey is just too much out of the budget), stuffing and honey roasted vegetables were just a few of the foody-bits the cooks whipped up. And in the mean time, Alexandra was on hand preparing our starters and nibbles, to stop us getting too hungry in anticipation!

The starters to main break was filled with games and christmas songs, with a very strong playlist of 62 songs playing on a loop throughout the day. And then finally, after much excitement and slaving away and a couple of panicked 'have you put the ***** in the over/on the stove!' we were ready to load our plates and feast on a traditional Christmas meal.

We ate and ate, going back for seconds until finally we could eat no more.... we knew there was more in store for us throughout the day! We pulled our special 'racing' crackers and decided to put them to the test- something my cracker toy was awful at. And took a huge gap between our main and dessert, to allow our bodies to fully recover before continuing to overfeed it in the typical Christmas way.

Finally, it was my course, dessert. I honestly think I was made for dessert. I have the worlds biggest sweet tooth and despite not having a particularly huge appetite for savoury things, I could probably eat chocolate and icecream all day. It is, a curse. But it means if there is anything I'm good at, it's choosing dessert. And I'd like to say, I did not disappoint.

We had some ice cream and apple crumble too which I didn't manage to snap a picture of, but the dessert offerings looked divine. Unfortunately there was a slight interval, when the fire alarm for our halls went off. The first of the year, we'd almost gone the whole term without a single one, and then somebody ruined it, right in the middle of a profiterole and cake feast for our flat! Luckily it was just a false alarm and so we returned, shivering cold and craving our chocolatey goodness, to continue with the dessert.

Eventually, after second and third helpings, none of us could breathe from being so full and we decided to put the remainders in the fridge and have a real interval before Sophie did the final course, cheese. We managed to borrow Articulate from another flat, a true classic Christmas game, and so we split into two teams and got maybe a bit competitive in winning. The team I was on proved victorious and there were couple of examples and answers which did make us question why we were even at university... 'A jungle in Africa (meaning the Amazon)'.... 'Killed millions of Jews' 'Sherlock'. Luckily nobody around the table was doing a history or geography degree. And then, the cheese came. We completed our feast with camembert, brie, goats cheese and some grapes to top it all off. As a cheese human, it was absolutely divine. Although after eating melted camembert last night too, I think it will be a long time before I can quite manage to look at another one again.

Our Christmas day ended on a high, with a lot of extremely full university students. The whole day was so lovely and just got me really in the mood for the real thing- it was sort of like a practice! We were all so impressed at ourselves for pulling it off, and there will probably be cake left over for months as there's just so much! I can hardly type I'm so full- this has taken a lot of effort to write, moving anywhere is not a viable option currently...

Do you have any christmas meals with friends before the real day? Have you done something similar at your university!? I hope you've all had lovely weekends!

Having a little university family looks like so much fun! Dessert human is the best role anyway. Looks like you all had a fabulous time, and I love these little lifestyley posts that are so relatable!lily xwww.jolihouse.com